St. Thérèse of Lisieux, whose feast day is October 1, is the youngest Doctor of the Church. This Carmelite nun from Lisieux was the youngest child of Sts. Zelie and Louis Martin. Having endured life-threatening illnesses when she was an infant and a child, and the heartbreaking loss of her mother when she was only four, Thérèse had to overcome crushing adversity with her powerful faith and determination.
She sought to enter Carmel while still a young teenager, and achieved this goal at 15. She was not a martyr or a missionary in the conventional sense, but she offered every small act for love of God, and her teachings have spread far and wide through her autobiography, Story of a Soul.
Thérèse taught “the little way,” which is not about striving for great deeds but rather, doing everything, even small things, with great love.
100 years of roses
These small acts make up a lifetime, and make the ordinary extraordinary. St. Thérèse explains how forgiving a slight against you, smiling genuinely when you would rather complain, or even picking up a pin from the floor with love -- any of this can have great worth before God. It all depends on love.
In her words: “Without love, deeds — even the most brilliant — count as nothing.”
This saint of love died in 1897 at 24 years old.
Did you know that 2025 marks St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s 100th year as a saint? That is 100 years of roses from heaven, as St. Thérèse is known for granting those who request her intercession signs of her assistance through flowers.
St. Thérèse, known as the “Little Flower,” famously said that she would spend her heaven doing good on earth and that, “When I die, I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens.”
Nature's wisdom
Here, then, are three quotes from the “Little Flower” on the subject of gardens as a spiritual metaphor:
(1) “Jesus has been gracious enough to teach me a lesson about the mystery of the differences in souls, simply by holding up to my eyes the book of nature. I understood how all the flowers God created are beautiful -- how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away from the perfume of the violet or the simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wildflowers.”
(2) “And so it is in the world of souls … Jesus’ garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but he created small ones as well … and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances, when he looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing God’s will … in being what He would have us be.”
(3) “I will sing even when I must pick my flowers amid thorns.”
Her choice to see
St. Thérèse’s use of language is filled with beautiful metaphor, but we must remember she was not merely starry-eyed or naive. She was not protected from the world’s suffering. After all, she experienced much pain and loss in her life. And so, her lovely language and perspective reflects a choice she made to see beauty in God’s world, to notice the flowers even through the hard times.
As Fulton Sheen once commented, “Two men looked out through prison bars. One saw mud; the other, stars.” St. Thérèse of Lisieux was one of those souls who saw the stars.
